' "Not yet," I said. "First you must put this funny little thing on him to keep him warm." I took it from my pocket and slung it across the table. He stopped chasing me and stared at it. I doubt he'd ever set eyes on one before. "What is this?" he cried.
"It's called a tickler," I said. "It's one of our famous English ticklers invented by Mr Oscar Wilde."
' "Oscar Wilde!" he cried. "Ha, ha! A great fellow!"
' "He invented the tickler," I said. "And Lord Alfred Douglas helped him."
' "Lord "Lord Alfred was another fine fellow!" he cried.
' "King Edward the Seventh," I said, laying it on, "carried a tickler on his person wherever he went."
' "King Edward the Seventh!" he cried. "My God!" He picked up the little thing lying on the table. "It is good, yes?"
' "It doubles the rapture," I said. "Put it on quickly like a good boy. I'm getting impatient."
' "You help me."
' "No," I said. "Do it yourself." And while he was fiddling around with it, I... well... I absolutely had to make sure he didn't see the banana and all the rest of it, didn't I?... and yet I knew the dreaded time had come when I was going to have to take my trousers down...'
'A bit risky, that.'
'It couldn't be helped, Oswald. So while he was fiddling around with Oscar Wilde's great invention, I turned my back
on him and whipped down my trousers and assumed what I imagined was the correct position by bending over the back of the sofa...'
'My God, Yasmin, you don't mean you were going to allow him...'
'Of course not,' she said, 'but I had to hide my banana and keep it out of his reach.'
'Yes, but didn't he jump you?'
'He came at me like a battering-ram.'
'How did you dodge it?'
'I didn't,' she said, smiling. 'That's the whole point.'
'I'm not with you,' I said. 'If he came at you like a battering-ram and you didn't dodge it, then he must have rammed you.'
'He didn't ram me the way you're thinking he rammed me,' she said. 'You see, Oswald, I had remembered something. I had remembered the story about A. R. Woresley and his brother's bull and how the bull was fooled into thinking his pizzle was in one place while actually it was in another. A. R. Woresley had grabbed hold of it and directed it somewhere else.'
'Is that what you did?'
'Yes.'
'But surely not into a bag like Woresley did?'
'Don't be an ass, Oswald. I don't need a bag.'
'Of course not... no... I see what you mean now... but wasn't it a bit tricky?... What I mean is... you facing the other way and all that... and him coming at you like a battering-ram... you had to be pretty quick, didn't you?'
'I was quick. I caught it in mid-air.'
'But didn't he twig?'
'No more than the bull did,' she said. 'Less so, in fact, and I'll tell you why.'
'Why?'